


Xeno's Paradox

by Lyrstzha



Category: Firefly, Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Crossover, Crossover Pairing, F/M, Female Protagonist, Kissing, Pre-Canon, torchwood 17
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-14
Updated: 2011-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-14 18:30:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrstzha/pseuds/Lyrstzha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River is sent on her first assassination assignment, but it doesn't work out quite the way her superiors intended.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Xeno's Paradox

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SullenSiren (lorax)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lorax/gifts).



> I have had River quote lines from Hamlet (Ophelia's [garland speech](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rue#Literary_references) and her [reply to Claudius](http://nfs.sparknotes.com/hamlet/page_238.html)), ["Irreparableness"](http://poetry.about.com/od/poems/l/blebbrowningirreparableness.htm) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and ["Cactus Tree"](http://jonimitchell.com/music/song.cfm?id=84) by Joni Mitchell. You really don't need to track these things down and read them for River to make as much sense as she generally does, though I have intended for it, like the title, to add some extra layers of meaning if you know the references.

“Send the Tam girl,” Dr. Zhang had said. “She’s the farthest along. All indications say she’s ready. And if she’s not, we need to know it.”

River had heard this in a distant sort of way. _The Tam girl_ , someone she’d been once, some collection of words that meant a soft, bright thing, delicately made and easily torn, like the hollow-boned wing of a bird. The name didn’t fit anymore; it chafed under her arms and stretched whisper-thin around her hips.

“The giant panda was classified variously as _ursidae_ , _procyonidae_ , and in its own _ailuropodidae_ before genetic evidence confirmed its distant relation to the bear. Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be,” she muttered beneath her breath, so softly that the people below her could not have heard.

She was braced in a shadowy corner of the high ceiling, one leg wrapped around a water pipe, the other locked against the wall, and her fingers curled into the ventilation grate she'd used to sneak into the room. She’d been there just long enough for her fingers to start to cramp, which could not have been long, but other than that she had no idea how much time had passed. Beneath her, a man tinkered with some sort of a sensor that looked like only half-familiar tech. River itched to touch it, to take it apart, but the compulsion of her orders was too strong. Beyond the man, two women and another man were re-assembling a mule that looked like it had been through a hurricane.

“No!” one of the women snapped in annoyance. “Put that _down_ , Kai. I told you, the lateral stabilizers have to go back on first.”

“ _Fine_ ,” huffed a tall, thin man who must be Kai. “If it’s your way or the highway, I’m taking the highway.” He tossed his tools onto a desk with a clatter. “I’ve had enough for today.” He turned his head slightly and raised his voice. “I’m taking off for the night, Jack. Before I choke Mira with her precious lateral stabilizers.”

Jack glanced up from his work. “You should all get out of here,” he countered. “It was a long day. Go and live a little.”

Kai beelined straight for the door without another word, leaving the women to put their tools away and shut down power to the diagnostic computers.

“Life,” muttered the second woman. “I think I had one of those once. Wonder where I put it?”

“Probably in your inbox,” Mira laughed at her, slinging an arm around her shoulders. “Buddha knows, you’d never find it there. Come on, you can borrow mine.” And she steered the other woman out the door Kai had taken.

River tensed, the power gathering in her thighs and shoulders, potential energy ready to tip into kinetic at any moment. _Mass multiplied by gravity multiplied by height shifting to point five multiplied by mass multiplied by speed squared_ , River’s brain whispered to her.

“I appreciate you waiting until they were gone,” Jack Harkness remarked conversationally without turning around or even pausing in his tinkering.

River stilled, not even breathing, her gathering strength arrested.

“I’d rather they didn’t have to watch me die,” Jack added. “That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? I’ve been expecting you ever since I told Minister Meyer to keep his hands and his black ops teams out of our vaults.”

“Can’t peek at the last page,” River answered softly after a moment. “Spoilers.”

Jack did turn around at that, looking right up at River. “You’re not exactly what I expected,” he said calmly. “You’re a tiny little slip of a thing, aren’t you? You can’t be more than fifteen.”

“Seventeen,” River insisted hotly and immediately, suddenly sounding like a normal teenager.

“Still.” Jack shrugged. “Not exactly how a guy pictures his assassin.”

His hands were empty and lay quiet and still on his desk. He watched her with steady eyes.

River’s body snapped open like a spring, twisting around and forwards to drive one booted heel into Jack’s nose with a soft and sickening crunch. He reeled back out of his chair and collapsed to the floor in a heap, eyes open and still staring above the broken place where she’d driven the bone right into his brain.

Crouched low where she’d landed, River shivered and could not look at him. The compulsion of her orders drained away, leaving her empty.

“Her heart is full and hollow, like a cactus tree,” she muttered, rocking back and forth a little on her heels, a faint noise of distress keening from her throat. She stuffed one fist into her mouth to stop the sound, but it didn’t help.

 _Return to base when your mission is complete_ , said a voice in the back of her memory, another command, something else to fill her up and give her shape. She was a sweater, all lumpy and knit together and shapeless until someone wore her. A sweater, a cactus tree, a bird’s wing—anything that was more empty space than object, anything that wasn’t and could never be a girl.

A loud, rough gasp behind her startled River, but not as much as the sudden _blaze_ in her mind’s eye did.

“You’re _wrong_ ,” said a voice beyond a door, always beyond something, always moving away. The Oncoming Storm, but not so oncoming—not to Jack, anyway, but it didn’t matter because he didn’t _let_ it, because he had love enough to fill years of absence, because he had time enough to even learn patience a little.

“Even better with three,” a laughing blonde woman said. Her arms and heart were so open, so bright, almost blinding, love in her voice and her eyes and her smile. So much happiness there and then, but so brief and so, _so_ long ago now that the edges of the memory were worn smooth like a worry stone, grown polished and silky with time and handling. Still and always a goddess in Jack’s mind, whether she wielded the power of resurrection or not.

Then there was a boy, a clear and terrible note ringing from him, death and failure and loss given voice, an iridium layer lying across the vast cavern of memory before and behind it, irrevocably dividing what Jack had been from what he was.

The memories flickered faster then. There was the faint click of a stopwatch, a shy stammer, a child’s empty hand, wide blue eyes crying, all merging into so many other moments that River could not see them clearly. There were quick flashes of warm skin and cold ground, blood and pain and laughter, a hundred skies, and stars that changed so much no sailor could ever find his way home by them. River choked and curled down over her thighs, wrapping her arms protectively over her head, dizzy and reeling.

Behind her, Jack sneezed violently.

“Shut up, shut up, shut _up_!” River howled. “Too loud, too much, too fast. Not a man, a graveyard.”

“The irony’s not lost on me,” Jack sighed wryly, and the images cut off so suddenly that River blacked out for a moment. “Sorry about that; didn’t mean to share the rush. I don’t often come back in front of a telepath.”

“Recursive life force, integrated with the fabric of space-time. Fixed star,” River answered.

“You could say that,” Jack agreed. “You’re River Tam, aren’t you? It’s been a long time, but I remember learning about you.”

“Girls have names and homes and tea parties,” River said. “Made something inside her shell, grew it in the dark, let it claw its way out.” She jerked around a little, until she could see Jack out of one eye. He sat on the floor, leaning on his drawn up knees, looking calm and wholly unlike someone who’d just been assassinated. “I’m wearing her face. And her shoes.”

“That’s what I thought.” Jack nodded. “Were you going to kill me again?” He sounded like he was asking after the weather.

River tilted her head at him, bird-like and intense. The press of orders inside her brain did not quite cover this. _Kill Captain Jack Harkness_ , the voice had said, not _Kill him until it sticks_. The pressure of that command still hammered at her, but its edge was all muddled and confused now, and she thought she might keep it at bay for the moment. It was a dog she could leash, maybe.

“No?” she ventured.

“Good. It really has been a long day, and I’d rather not go through all that again.” He levered himself slowly to his feet, making no threatening or sudden moves. “So, welcome to Torchwood Seventeen. Tea?” he offered, reaching for a carafe on his desk.

“Catechins and fate in a porcelain cup,” River murmured.

“We’ve only got steel,” Jack told her, holding out a metal cup.

 _You would_ , she thought, and reached out reflexively to take it, a faint warmth tingling against her fingers as she did. The floral scent of green tea tickled at her nose.

Jack sipped from his own mug, watching River thoughtfully over the brim. “I’m your first kill,” he said, after a moment’s steady regard.

“ _Only_ ,” River corrected him vehemently. “Singular, solitary, _only_.”

“First,” Jack insisted. “I’m so sorry, but you must know that’s true.”

“You must wear your rue with a difference,” she spat bitterly, and hurled the mug across the room to rebound off the far wall with a ringing clang and a shower of tea, a ragged scream ripping out of her like another piece torn from the girl she used to be.

“I’m sorry,” Jack said again, not flinching back, not afraid. The urge to destroy Jack rose again, like bile in River’s throat; she leaned her weight onto the balls of her feet without meaning to, and her hands flattened into spears. “I really am. But I remember about you. You’re a pivot point in history, right at the center of change. And change is almost always bloody. Don’t get me wrong, it’s worth struggling against that, but it’s mostly an uphill battle. Believe me, I know.”

And he _did_ , she could tell. She twitched her hands to loosen them, to shake out the death that lurked restlessly there. It eased a bit, but it would not quite go. With a wash of despair, she thought it probably never would fade completely ever again. Jack was right: he was her _first_.

“Made me broken, made me wrong,” River wailed miserably.

“Hey,” Jack cut across her firmly. “Never say that. Anyone who tells you that, they don’t really mean it. What you are isn’t your fault.”

River crumpled to the floor in a heap of gangly limbs, mussed hair, and tears. The sobs that escaped her throat hurt coming up out of her chest like they were barbs of some weapon being pulled free. After a moment, Jack knelt down beside her, one hand stroking soothingly down her back.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he murmured. “You know the hardest thing about trying to protect humanity?”

River peered up at him through her snarled curtain of hair and twitched her head in a jerky shake no.

Jack reached out and gently tucked some of that hair behind her ear. “It’s that there’s so much of it,” he said softly. “You have to focus on the people in front of you and hope to help as many as you can.”

“I can’t help anyone,” River snuffled wetly. “Sinking ships are not feasible lifeboats. Perforation is problematic in this metaphor.”

Jack just chuckled and patted her shoulder. “I meant ‘you’ in a general way, not specifically you, silly,” he told her. “And River?” He waited until she looked at him full-on, and then he smiled at her, something fierce and bright in his expression that made her catch her breath. “ _You’re_ in front of me,” he went on. “And this time, I _do_ mean you specifically.”

River caught her breath, _believing_ in spite of all that she wasn’t anymore, in spite of everything she knew. She laughed, because possibility and relief took up too much space in her chest and had to spill over. Jack laughed with her, putting his hands on her shoulders and leaning in to press his forehead against hers. She let him for a moment, but then twisted in his hold to brush her lips against his, a darting, quicksilver sort of kiss that still felt like tasting the universe, in all its power and wonder, made flesh.

She might have kissed him again, maybe even properly, but Jack pulled back, still smiling.

“Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the thought. But you’re a little young for me yet, sweetheart.”

“Who _isn’t_?” she demanded.

Jack laughed again. “Good point; I’ll give you that one. But still, give it time. Grow a little, heal a little. I’m not going anywhere.”

“What if _I_ am?”

Jack sobered. “Oh, you are. Trust me. We’ve got to get you out of Alliance hands before those monsters hurt you any worse than they already have.”

River gave a hollow sort of a snort. “They come for tea, but the cupboard is bare.”

Jack shook his head emphatically, somehow understanding her perfectly. “Don’t say that. It can _always_ get worse. There’s a chemical the Minister stole from our vaults. I suspect he’s already tried it on humans, and if they figure out how to control the effects, they could _definitely_ be crazy enough to try it out on you super-soldiers to try to make you into even deadlier weapons.”

River flinched, both from the idea and the word ‘weapon’ to describe her, but Jack immediately reached out a hand to rub her shoulder.

“Sorry,” he said yet again.

“But it’s true,” she whispered.

“Yes,” he agreed, gentle and terrible and honest. “But that isn’t always a bad thing, and it doesn’t have to be _all_ that you are. _I’m_ pretty dangerous sometimes, which I think you saw—but I like to think that it’s only when I need to be, and only a small part of who I am. One part sharp edges to three parts knight in shining armor, I hope.” He chucked her softly under the chin and left his hand there, knuckles warm against her neck. River could feel the rhythm of his pulse through his skin, steady and strong, and her hands crept up towards him. “You are so much more than anybody’s weapon, River. And you’re going to be—”

But whatever he was going to say next was lost. Before she knew her hands were moving, River felt the rasp of Jack’s stubble beneath her palms. A split second later, she felt a small, sickening crunch echo up her arms as her hands grasped and twisted, snapping Jack’s neck. _Hand near throat: threat_ , River’s training had warned. _Defend_. And in that moment, her orders had slipped their leash.

He did not even make a sound, merely dropping to the floor at her feet like a puppet whose strings had been cut. His eyes looked sad, but not surprised.

River keened her distress, traitorous hands smothering back the shrill noise as it tried to escape from her mouth. Her chin was still warm where he had touched her, and she could still taste the faintest hint of time and space on her lips.

“Another, sooth, may pluck them, but not I,” she mumbled beneath her muffling fingers, and she wanted to get _away_ , _away_.

There was no use pretending that she wasn’t a weapon after all. She was back in her cage even before she could stop crying.

 

It might have been hours or days later when River felt the gossamer brush of vast age against her mind as she lay awake one night. She stiffened on her narrow bed, not even breathing for a long moment, straining to the limits of her perception across a distance she knew instinctively was almost beyond her.

_River? I can’t hear you, but I can feel you reading me._

“I’m so sorry,” she mumbled aloud, wishing she could tell him.

 _It’s all right_ , Jack’s mind whispered to her, as if he had heard her anyway. _It wasn’t your fault, sweetheart. And it’s not like I didn’t get better. Listen, we found your brother; he’s been looking for a way to get to you. We’re going to help him get you out, River, and that’s a promise._

River felt a fierce surge of satisfaction and anticipated victory from him, and she so wanted to be swept up in that intoxicating tide. She grinned behind her hand, hidden from the cameras that were always watching, watching, watching.

The touch of Jack’s mind faded a little, beginning to move slowly out of River’s grasp. She struggled to cling to that waning brightness so hard that her head ached.

_I have to go now, River. But you remember what I promised and keep the faith, okay? And someday, when it’s safer to come back here, you know where to find me. If you need me._

The last part was so faint, River was not sure if she imagined it.

“If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there’d be no work for a traveler,” she sang softly to herself. The muscles of her face had lost the trick of smiling easily, but, for a moment, they were reminded.

River fell asleep with the taste of the universe tingling across her lips.


End file.
